I love playing games with my kids. I never know what we may experience during the game…

For instance, I was playing one of our SimplyFun games called Dreaming Dragon with my then 3 year old daughter. The box says ages 6 and up but we had played it with her older brother all the time and it had become one of her favorite games. Since my daughter was so young, we did not play the game by the rules (you can do that with SimplyFun games…you can play the games at the level of the child.) As we were playing, if an egg fell off the dragon…no big deal! We were more focusing on the fine motor skills and the hand-eye coordination with the tweezers.

One day we were playing the game, just her and I, while her brother was at school. She began to take more and more time with her turns and that is when I realized that she was attempting to visual map…meaning she was trying to find a place to go where she was not going to have an egg fall. I was so surprised because I had never once showed her how to do that. She had learned it from watching me, her dad and her brother play the game that way!

She was able to learn a skill just by playing the game and watching other people play. I have decided to let her just try playing any game that sparks her interest because we are always surprised what kids can learn when they are presented with the opportunity… and it’s FUN!